It’s officially the end of spring, and our garden is starting to show the fruits of our labors. (And by “our labors,” I mean the labors of Mr. Cheap.)
For several years, Mr. Cheap has been renovating our back yard. He tore up a huge chunk of the large driveway, mostly by hand, partly with the use of a rented jackhammer.
This year, he installed posts to espalier the apple trees along the fence — that is, train them along wires so that they become a sort of living fence within the fence. (You can see the white racks on the ground — these are overturned, trash-picked dishwasher racks. I originally used them to dry wool fleece for spinning after I washed it, but you know, I really don’t like processing fleece. So now they are keeping the dog and the birds out of baby plants.)
The apples are rewarding us with … apples!
Our other fruit is coming along, too, with cherries on the way …
… and strawberries growing underneath the cherry tree. (Immediately after I snapped this photo, Schnauzer Cheap snapped off a green strawberry to eat. I yelled at him, removed the berry from his mouth, and covered up the strawberries with netting. Argh!)
Mlle. Cheap is contributing to the homebrewing effort by allowing Mr. Cheap’s hops to climb all over her play structure:
The tomatoes are growing nicely – some out on their own, and some baby plants still in their Wall O’ Water insulation (they love it hot and muggy!). The tree in the background is an apricot we planted 4 years ago. This year would have been the first year it gave us fruit, but all the tiny fuzzy green apricots were killed off by a freeze:
And this looks like a mess — it is a patch of leeks (and purslane). We’ve installed a bed of leeks, inspired by a post on “leeks for the lazy gardener” — we once grew them, and they were wonderful, plus they are expensive to buy. The purslane needs to be weeded out, but we are waiting until we’re ready to eat it instead of tossing it. It’s a nutritious wild green, and if you weed it you must be careful to really get rid of it or each little plucking will sprout a new plant. In the background are morning glories getting ready to climb the fence.
How about you? How is it going in your garden?
Browse Timeline
Comments ( 1 Comment )
I absolutely love the repurposed dishwasher racks to protect your young plants! Great idea. I’ve been using yogurt containers with the tops cut off myself… Gardening is the bee’s knees. Love the site!
Dez Dino added these pithy words on
Jun 19 10 at
9:18 am
